Hey guys! I am having an odd issue with my 3D printer. It’s a Prusa i3 clone and I use Marlin in RAMPS 1.4. So far everything was working okay. I had successfully printed many parts on ABS and PLA and I’ve been slicing with Slic3r so far. This past week I ran into a situation though. I designed a part that might be considered a bit more complex than the ones I printed before, and with that particular model, the printer is skipping steps in the z-axis. Everything is still working fine for other models. I’ve also tried slicing it with Cura and the issue persists: the resulting part is shorter than it should (measuring around 56mm tall instead of 90mm as it’s supposed to).
It’s rather odd because my settings in Marlin are correct, the printer doesn’t usually fail when moving up and down, the slicing profiles have succeeded before and the only problematic model is that one. I have also tried to reduce the printing speed with no luck.
The only thing I’ve changed in the printer in the past few days is enabling 3 point auto bed leveling and installed an inductive sensor that replaced the mechanical z end stop. But once again, it did print well after installing it and printing other models. If you ask me, I don’t believe the problem is related to that, but perhaps it’s worth to mention.
Hope you guys can give me some ideas! Thanks!!
First thing I would do is run the model through a fixer such as netfabb or makeprintable.com.
Also you could try the model on a different printer or get someone else to try it so see if you can repeat the issue.
I would also verify the model in the design program is actually the dimensions you expected and that it is exporting ok.
Your slicer should be able to give you overall dimensions.
hmm maybe the small chips on the ramps board get overheated and they shut off for like 1/10 of a sec. that is what happend with my “complex” models before. that way the product seems to skip step in one of the directions. u could try to blow a fan on the ramps board for some “intesive” cooling? that is wat did the trick for me. u could also lower your speed. that way the amount of calculations per seconds that needs to be done is lower. that way the ramps board had more time to cool off before calcuation the next step?
hope this helps!
